


Eight Snapshots of the Epic Love Affair

by fannishliss



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Brotherly Love, M/M, Wincest - Freeform, epic love affair of Sam and Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-24
Updated: 2013-09-25
Packaged: 2017-12-27 13:37:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 6,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/979562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fannishliss/pseuds/fannishliss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a series of eight ficlets celebrating the eight seasons of Supernatural and the epic love affair of Sam and Dean Winchester -- one for each season.  </p><p>In some of these ficlets, Sam and Dean express their love for one another physically -- please do not read if this troubles you. </p><p>Also, I made use of prompts from the day by drabble Midwinter drabblethon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. s1: Longing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean wanted Sam not just near him, but with him.

 My spn ficlets celebrating the eight seasons so far are inspired by the Midwinter prompt collection at  [day by drabble](http://day-by-drabble.livejournal.com/) , f[ound here under the Midwinter Prompts tag](http://day-by-drabble.livejournal.com/tag/midwinter%3A%20prompt%20post).  If you need prompts these are pretty cool for Sam and Dean!  Let me know if you are inspired.  :)

\------

S1: "Longing"

It seemed to Dean that he had always been longing for Sam.  
  
Even when, stronger than any four-year-old should need to be, he'd gathered Sam up and run with him from the wreckage of their childhood, Dean had longed for Sam.  There was something somehow too real about Sam's earthy needs as a big, growing baby.  He needed his mother (so did Dean and they weren't ever going to get her).  He needed food and diapers and a safe place to sleep.  (Even then, even then, John had relied on Dean to help him provide Sam with all the things every baby needs.)  Dean was not much out of babyhood himself, and he could hardly comprehend it: his baby brother had become his responsibility before most children even understand the concept of responsibility.

So how could Dean long for Sam, when his brother was right there? He longed for more than Sam's mere presence.  He wanted Sam not just near him, but with him.  He needed Sam to acknowledge the enormity of the bonds that linked them together.  They were more than just brothers - Dean had gone far beyond brotherly love, dedicating his life to meeting Sam's needs.  They were more than Hunting partners -- Sam was a reluctant Hunter, but still, they Hunted together with almost psychic efficiency.

Dean had always known their bond was so much deeper than brotherhood or partnership.  Why was it so hard for Sam to understand?

Really, Dean knew it was too much. It was better for him to try to be contented with whatever Sam could give.

But every so often, Dean broke down.  His pride in the Hunt hung loose and left him unfulfilled.  His taste for food, liquor, women, or even the heady roar of rock songs and the Impala's wheels eating road, left him restless and hollow.

He yearned for more.  He tried not to.  He knew it was wrong -- it would eat him up, poison what they'd managed to piece back together.

Still, Dean couldn't help but dream, and in dreams he was weak, and his yearnings took shape, and Sam's smile was soft and real and full of affection; Sam's arm lay heavy across Dean's shoulders; Sam whispered to Dean all his admiration for Dean's ingenuity, his skill, and the way they fought together, side by side, to get the Hunting done.

Dean could dream, even when he told himself he shouldn't, that Sam wouldn't ask him what he wanted for himself, because Sam would know.  Sam wouldn't dream of going back to school, going his own way.  Sam would dream, like Dean did, that they would be together, bound together by family or love or whatever it was between them.  And there would always be another Hunt, and Dean and Sam would work it side by side, collapsing into easy companionship with the triumph of a job well done singing in their veins.

That was all Dean wanted, wasn't it? After all he'd given, was that so much to ask?

It was a longing, that was all.  Dean tucked it away and shoved it down and concentrated on the road,  the Hunt, the long progress of days and nights that tied Sam closer and closer.  Dean refused to think of any footsteps that might ever lead away, any sunset at the end of their never-ending journey.  Only the details mattered: diners, monsters, rock salt, silver, matchbooks dropped into open graves, gravel parking lots, dim hotel rooms, the clink of shared beers, weariness subsiding into even righteous breaths, peaceful when all was said and done.

\--- from Midwinter prompts 10 _crackle_ , 11 _long_ , 19 a photo of footsteps leading across snow into sunset, and 29 _And you, little son come safely home  Riding the tail of the wind. May you always come this safely home   In winter, fire and snow._   --"Fire, Snow, and Carnevale" by Macdara Woods  



	2. s2: The Axe Poised to Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If Dean didn't know Sam, would he need to hunt him?

S2: "the Axe poised to Fall"

Dean can see it, hear himself saying it, like a prophecy, the worst kind of nightmare:  
  
 _If I didn't know you, I would want to Hunt you._

He can see those words, hanging like breath in frigid air. He hasn't said them yet, but somehow, despite the knife they are in his heart, his brother's heart, he knows he will, in some terrible future, when Sam has become what he is becoming.

Now, all he can do is catch his brother's giant body as it falls, felled by something unnatural, supernatural, monstrous. He never wanted this: never wanted the jump on a Hunt, the psychic lead that might save lives. There's one life he needs to save, and the rest are just gravy -- the one is his brother, his Sammy. No one else matters, no one else will ever matter this much.

He feels his vocation like an executioner's axe, poised above the neck of his own brother.

It will not end that way. He will never, ever, let it end that way, with Sammy dead -- not if there is anything he can do about it.

There's just one thing he knows. He knows what he is supposed to do.

\--- from Midwinter prompts 16 _steam_ , 22 _dormant_ , and 17 photo of axe buried in log with pile of firewood.  



	3. s3: Resolute

S3: Resolute

  
  
Sam thought he'd dedicated himself one hundred percent to saving Dean from the deal.  
  
He was wrong, and it took the Trickster to show him that.  
  
It was only after Dean died again, and again, and again, and then one last time to really drive it home, that Sam became one hundred percent devoted to saving his brother.  
  
There was nothing he'd let stand in his way: not normalcy, not his own pain, not even Bobby.  Sam found himself eager to sacrifice whatever was necessary to save his brother, willingly and wholeheartedly.  
  
When Groves shot Dean in the cell, Sam felt himself rising up, squaring his shoulders out of their non-threatening hunch, becoming a mountain of man between his brother and anything that would dare to threaten him.  He let the exorcism pour out of him like water.  He was ready to do anything to keep Dean safe -- even if it meant he needed to assault the station's sweet young secretary, terrify her and steal from her.  
  
He would do anything.  He understood now what that was like.  
  
But still, he wasn't just like Dean.  The knowledge of how far he would go didn't scare him at all.


	4. s4: Snow on snow, snow on snow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean can't stand that Sam is actively embracing the fate he only escaped through Angelic intervention.

**S4 ficlet:  Snow on snow, snow on snow**  
  
Summary:  Dean can't stand that Sam is actively embracing the fate he only escaped through Angelic intervention.  
  
  
\---  
Dean had always liked that his birthday was in January.  Even though it came so close to Christmas, that didn't matter, cause Winchesters didn't do much in the way of presents.  But it seemed fitting to Dean -- a new year begun, another year older and wiser.  Another year of putting away monsters before they put you away.  
  
Now though, January seemed so empty, bone cold, ground frozen, trees bare, frost limning every shadow and no birds singing.  
  
Dean watched the day of his birthday come and go and wondered what was the point.   Years meant nothing in hell; there was no world turning there, no sun at the center of everything.  Just a vast expanse of horror pulsing outward in every direction, on and on, little cruxes of concentrated misery spindling it all together.  Day, night, month, decade -- none of those words meant anything.  Only the feeble spasms of human agony, the rabbity pulses of the impossible heart, throbbing in terror, torn out, devoured and instantly replaced, measured the time.  
  
When Dean got back, when he laid eyes on Sam, that was when he first felt that he was really alive again.  He'd pared the dirt out from under his fingernails, put on fresh clothes at Bobby's, but his heartbeat felt like a tempting lie, his breath didn't feel real till Sam was pressed against him, warm in his arms, filling his nostrils with the old familiar scent that could only be his brother.  
  
Dean turned thirty and life crawled on. Measuring by the calendar, Dean had lost four months.     Judging by the way Sam hid from his eyes, he'd lost a lot more than that.   Sam was obsessed with finding Lilith:  it was all he could think about, her head on a platter, bloody.  Dean thought Sam's blood thirstiness was shocking.  His little brother had never been that way before.   It turned out to be even worse -- he wasn't just bloodthirsty now, he was actually drinking blood, demon blood, storing up power, changing himself into a weapon powerful enough to take down Lilith.  
  
Dean had felt that kind of change.  He remembered the power he'd had as a demon, the way it grew whenever he let go and let himself wallow in the anger and the bloodlust.    Only Castiel had saved him from the fate of other demon souls he would have happily tortured under his blades.  And he had been eager to twist the knife in Alastair, despite the fact the Demon only seemed to enjoy it.  
  
Dean knew from tragic experience that Demons could enjoy.  He remembered the sickening relief he'd felt down deep when he finally gave in, got off the rack, and took up the knife.  The absence of torment -- turning that torment onto others -- it ate at his soul and turned his eyes inky, until the Angel healed him and lanced out that damnable infection.  
  
Now Sam was choosing to consort with a Demon, actively choosing to drink demon blood, nurturing the taint inside himself,  so he could be strong enough at last to kill Lilith and free Dean from the marker on his soul.  
  
Dean didn't really care any more about his soul.  Sure, he'd do anything to keep from going back to Hell -- but he figured he'd go wherever the Angels and Demons cared to send him, in the end.  
  
Sam was a more pressing matter.  Dean needed Sam to be himself again.  He needed Sam to regain his moral center.  Sam had somehow gotten the wrong idea, putting Dean's survival and well-being ahead of his own.  He liked it, just a little, but his over whelming response to Sam's scheme  was an anguished _no_.  
  
 _Don't do this to me, Sammy.  I saved you when you were little, and then again when you were big.  Please Sam, I'm begging you, don't give yourself to a demon's way in.  They hurt you inside and you can't stop them.  Please, please, Sam -- don't do anything you'll regret._  
  
But who knew what Sam might regret these days.  He was with Ruby, and she was making him strong -- strong enough to kill Alastair, when Dean, despite all his knives, couldn't.  Was this the kind of thing Sam took pleasure in now?  Did he feel that pulse of demonic joy, down deep in his gut, and lower, whenever he felt the damaged he inflicted with his powers?  
  
It made Dean sick to think of it.  What was Sam becoming?  If he embraced the power of a demon, how would he ever regain his humanity?  Would the Angels pull it out of him, like Castiel had with Dean? Or would they simply smite him and send him to the Pit, like Cas had threatened?  
  
The Angel couldn't really be trusted, Dean feared -- Cas too had too much of that savage satisfaction -- _I pulled you out of the Pit-- I can toss you back in._  
  
Everything Dean had suffered in Hell, it had all been to keep Sam safe.  He'd never wanted anything else.  His little brother, free and alive, maybe even happy someday -- even after he broke, even in the smoldering rage and dark joy of his demonhood, he thought it might have been worth it.   Dean had done things in Hell he could never live down.  He never wanted Sam to face that kind of darkness in himself.  
  
Sam had never wanted to be a Hunter.  Now Dean could only hope that those old peaceful instincts would kick in, and keep Sam's soul from mortal blight.  
  
If Dean could have cradled Sam's innocence in his arms, he would have, running with it tenderly, like he'd run so long ago.  
  
But maybe it was already too late.    Dean was rising up from his time in Hell, getting better, slowly but bit by bit. Too late -- Sam was already barrelling his way down.  
  
 _Please_ , Dean prayed, _let him be okay just a little while longer.  We almost have this whole thing figured out.  Let us fix it and then fix Sammy._  
  
Dean didn't know who he was praying to.  He  could only hope his prayers would somehow be answered.  
  
\---  
  
Notes: The prompts from Midwinter day by drabble were:  
4 _deep_ ;  
6 "Every mile is two in winter."  --Jacula Prudentum by George Herbert;  
and 1, In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow, In the bleak midwinter, long ago.-- Christina Rosetti.


	5. s5: One Immortality, One Annihilation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean understood now why no human being should see beyond the Light, why the end should remain mysterious.

Dean understood now why no human being should see beyond the Light, why the end should remain mysterious.  
  
The human dream of Heaven was a beautiful thing: the city paved with gold, the city made foursquare, the city not made by hands; the peaceable kingdom, the garden of endless delight, the beautiful country.  There'll be no sorrow there, and every tear shall be wiped away.  There shall swords be cast away, and they shall not learn war anymore, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.  
  
Hell had been a bogey tale, until he'd felt its hooks and chains.  
  
Heaven then, might've remained a beautiful dream -- until he'd been there, pinned in the Angelic spotlight.  
  
He'd seen the fireworks bursting, that one time when Sam had been the happiest Dean had ever seen him -- that was Dean's Heaven.  That right there.  Stolen happiness, a midnight field, a brother's joyful embrace.  
  
Not a turkey dinner and a room full of strangers.  
  
Not an infinite loop of empty memories, strung like a baud's cheapest baubles.  
  
To say Heaven left Dean cold would be the world's biggest understatement.  
  
Dean had seen Hell, now he'd seen Heaven, and there was no hope in either place.  He'd seen the future -- his own empty double, his brother hollowed out.  The future held no hope.  
  
When the end finally came, when his brother's stolen fist had pulverized half his face, there was nothing left, and Dean was okay with that.  All that mattered was all he had left to give -- he wouldn't leave his brother.  Not for Heaven, not for Hell, not for fear, not for anything.  If there was one tiny chance Sam was in there, Dean had nothing left but to be there for him.  
  
"Sammy? It's okay, I'm here. I'm not going to leave you."  
  
There wasn't anything more for him to give, so he gave it.  
  
And somehow, a miracle, it was enough.  
  
Lucifer fell, and Sam rose up.  
  
Sam, Dean's beautiful brother, did the right thing.  Shining like glory, like the only sun in Dean's whole sorry, bleak and miserable existence, Sam grabbed his fate and wrestled the archangels down into the Pit.  
  
The ground snapped closed.  
  
Dean was remade and sent to Lisa to live.  He had a promise to keep.  
  
But only one desire beat in his heart: to die.   The afterlife meant only one thing to Dean: to find Sam, and do for Sam whatever needed doing.  
  
Dean knew there was life after death.  The existence of the soul, to Dean, was a proven fact.  And all that meant to him was that his brother was lost, in the grip of a raging archangel, and someday, Dean would be there with him, whatever that meant.  
  
Despite his promise, Dean wanted nothing more than to tear through Heaven or Hell or wherever he ended up, to face it together with his brother: one Heaven, one Hell, one immortality, and one annihilation.   
  
  
  
\----------  
NOTES: thanks y'all for your comments -- they keep me inspired to keep writing and I really appreciate it!!   
  
 prompts from Midwinter day by drabble:  
My method was to put all the prompts into one file and then sort them by season.  :)   For s5 there were a bunch of great prompts that had to do with that icy quality of Lucifer and the feeling that their fates were freezing in around Sam and Dean.  You can see that the ficlet is not directly related to the prompts, but it is more loosely inspired by them.  I especially liked the photo prompts, the idea of Sam's life and Dean's diverging  yet still irrevocably one; and the robin redbreast, so implacably singing despite its bleak surroundings.  I imagine that little bird in the cemetery at Stull, a painful piece of evidence for Dean of how life just won't stop going on.  
If any of these prompts grab you, please write for them!  
Another prompt I really liked for s5 was "bundled" -- it made me think of 2014 but that didn't happen in this ficlet.  
  
18\. Winter came down to our home one night Quietly pirouetting in on silvery-toed slippers of snow,  
And we, we were children once again. --Bill Morgan, Jr.  
  
26\. "Winter lies too long in country towns; hangs on until it is stale and shabby, old and sullen."  --My Antonia by Willa Cather  
  
9\. In a certain faraway land the cold is so intense that words freeze as soon as they are uttered, and after some time then thaw and become audible, so that words spoken in winter go unheard until the next summer.  
\--Moralia by Plutarch  
  
bonus quotation from P. B. Shelley, Epipsychidion:  
 <http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174386>  
My husband and I used this  (the very end of it, from "We shall become the same" to "one annihilation" on our wedding invitation.  :)  
  
photo prompts # 14 and #25  



	6. s6: Bare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean is a year out of practice, and everything he wants is right there.

spn ficlet for s6: "Bare"  
  
  
Dean is a year out of practice.  One year of the Impala under a tarp, one year's worth of old books with no new answers, one year's worth of hidden bottles drained faster than Lisa could find them, one year of Dean's guilty grimace and Lisa's patient understanding.   All Dean can think about is Sam, in the Pit, the way time stretches out eternally there, Sam's never-ceasing torment that Dean can practically feel.  Books and liquor and days crawl by glacier slow, till a whole year has passed and Sam is back.  
  
He's freaking huge. Dean was used to Sam's extra four inches in height, but the size of Sam now makes Dean feel small.    The look in Sam's eyes makes Dean feel small, the little smirk around Sam's perfect lips, the assessing gaze in his dark eyes.  
  
It all comes down to a room that smells like a hippie chick, like sex, Sam glowing in all his perfect skin and Dean's confused by the musk of woman -- that's what he tells himself -- and the look in Sam's eye and on his lips is more than come hither.  It's a dare.  
  
Big hands spread wide, hip level, open, a display -- _here I am, big brother._  
  
Dean's been so cold and Sam is putting out heat.  He melts away the ice that's been locking Dean in place.  The year was too long, the suffering never ending.   Dean just needs to feel that heat warming his own skin.  Sam's still not right but what if he never will be?  
  
Dean is a year out of practice.  Trying so hard all year, to show when he's grateful, to show that he cares -- he can't school the soul-deep yearning back down.  Dean waited a year, gave all he had to give.  He can't wait any more when Sam is right there, daring him to take what he wants.  
  
Dean wants.  
  
Sam steps closer, the deadliest predator.  
  
Dean gives it up.  Sam surrounds him, takes him down, swallows him whole.  
  
Sam is a bigger, stronger thing than Dean has ever known, implacable, golden, almost godlike, putting Dean right where he wants him, taking what he wants.   
  
Whatever you want, whatever, Dean urges.  
  
Dean ain't nothing if he can't take a dare.  He takes it, scorches underneath Sam's heat, feels himself burn and begs for more--  
  
\--wishing the warmth went all the way inside, wishing he could feel it in Sam's hollow smile.  
  
  
=====  
prompts for s6  from Midwinter day by drabble:  
13\. bare  
  
12\. Nobody sees when you are lying in your bed And I wanna crawl in with you  But I cry instead  
I want your warm, but it will only make  Me colder when it's over  --"Love Ridden" by Fiona Apple  
  
21\. "I like these cold, gray winter days. Days like these let you savor a bad mood."--Bill Watterson  
  
15\. How like a winter hath my absence been From thee the pleasure of the fleeting year!  What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen, What old December’s bareness everywhere!   --"Sonnet 97" by William Shakespeare  
  
20.  photo of some hipster in a sweater  cuddling Genevieve in a cabin  -- this would be a great prompt for The French Mistake.  :)


	7. s7: Stone Number One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Is pain the only thing that can drive away Hallucifer?

**this chapter earns the Mature rating, so back away now if you need to, or skip to the next chapter**  
  
  
=====  
  
Dean's found a pretty good squat, somewhere near Cincinnati. Vacant maybe three months or so, still keeping out the weather.  The mildewy smell of neglect and rot isn't too bad, not so soon.  It's practically a spa retreat for the Winchesters, these days.  
  
"Does it have to be pain?" Sam says, out of the blue, across the kitchen table.  Beautiful table.  Dean can't understand the things people leave behind.  
  
Dean looks over.  Sam looks tired, hopeless.   His eyes are so sad.  "Huh?"  
  
Sam feebly waves his injured hand.  Slowly it's healing despite the re-injuries Sam's torn into it.  
  
"It's just…. dude. All that time in the cage… and he's still making me hurt… and he's not even real.  Right?"  
  
Sam's weary, pain-filled gaze burns into Dean.  How much more can his brother really take at this point? He looks like the walking dead.  He barely sleeps.  The pain in his hand drives Lucifer away, but not for long, if Sam's panicky glances at nothing are anything to go by.  
  
"He's not real, Sam.  You gotta believe me," Dean promises.  
  
"I believe you," Sam says, but his voice has gone rote, quiet and lacking much conviction.  
  
"Pain not cutting it?" Dean asks, shortly.  
  
Sam shakes his head.  
  
Dean considers the options.  He could amp it up, carve into Sam, whale on him a little, but the thought of it makes him sick inside. The thought of using his unwanted torturer skills  on his little brother? That's the kind of thing that would have made Alistair proud, and that's the last thing Dean would ever want to do.  
  
So what's left to try?  Narcotics only made the hallucinations worse.  Booze don't cut it.  Talking it out only works till Lucifer drowns Dean out.  
  
"Pain don't work, you could try pleasure," Dean quips, half heartedly, picturing a brothel, the time he'd taken Cas to lose his virginity and they'd been run out of the place.  
  
"Pleasure?" Sam says, and there's something in Sam's voice that makes Dean look, really look.  
  
Sam licks his lips, his gaze flickers uneasily at Dean and away.  
  
"Pleasure might work," Dean says, slowly, testing the waters,  "you know, it cross circuits the brain, or some shit?"  
  
Sam nods.  "So I've heard."  
  
Dean nods.  Coughs, swallows.  
  
"Sammy, you saying… you wanna fool around?"   Dean tries to make it sound like a joke, but he is thinking, whatever Sammy needs, whatever.  
  
"Dean, man -- you're my brother…" Sam says, but his voice is soft, inquisitive.  
  
"I am that.  Always have been, always will be," Dean responds.  He tries to make his own voice gentle, sure.  Whatever Sammy needs.  
  
"I just need it…. not to hurt so much," and Sam's voice breaks and Dean sees the tears, and he's got Sam in his arms before he even thinks about it.  
  
"Sammy, Sammy, I got you," Dean says, his arms tight around Sam, and that's nothing new.    Sam feels right in his arms, just like he always has -- big, strong, solid, with that indefinable smell that means brother and Dean can't imagine anything better.  
  
But Dean doesn't want to feel Sam crying, shaking, trying to hold back the sobs, the desperation wracking him as the tortures of Hell burn their way through his sanity.  
  
Dean rocks his brother, soothing him with a heavy touch, as Sam breathes and chokes and tries not to lose it.  
  
"I got you," Dean repeats.  Sam's body is rock hard.  He feels like a mountain.  Dean can't stand how a man can be so strong and be brought so low.  
  
"Please, Dean-- please-- just, I can't--" Sam says.  
  
And Dean doesn't want to hear Sam beg, so he seals his lips over Sam's, licks inside, tasting his brother, and it doesn't taste at all like sin.  
  
It feels like Heaven, if Heaven were a place you'd actually want to go.  Sam opens up with a moan of relief and Dean just wrestles him into place.  
  
"Sammy, Sammy, I love you, brother," Dean mumbles, kissing Sam's mouth, stroking his chest.  
  
"Dean, oh god, Dean," Sam says, grabbing on to Dean's shirts, peeling them back.  
  
They topple from the rickety chair Sam was perched on (heavy tables, rickety chairs, the stuff of abandoned houses, Dean thinks)  onto the floor.  Dean writhes his thigh between Sam's and lays his brother out, holding him down.  
  
"I'll do it for you, Sammy, whatever you want, just tell me, I'll do it," Dean promises, biting at Sam, but gently, just marking the flesh with the need he's always felt, always, to possess this man, his brother, to mark him as his own forever, in a way that can't be washed off or shaken loose.  
  
Sam gropes for Dean's hands, threads one around his neck, brings the other to his chest. Dean's fingers tangle at the nape, his hand full of the back of Sam's giant skull.  It fills Dean with awe, to think that Sam had been dead more than a few times over, but still his noggin ticks on, and now Dean is here with him, biting at him, kissing him, humping against his leg, and it's hot, hot like he always knew in his gut it would be if they ever dared.  
  
Sam leads his other hand over his heart and Dean, on instinct, ferrets out Sam's nipple through the thin tee shirt and pinches it, lightly, worrying it to hear Sam hiss.  
  
"That's good, isn't it, Sam?  It is for me, too.  Just enough of a pinch to make you feel it, down to your balls, right Sam?"  
  
"Ohh," Sam moans, and he's all the way hard, pressing thick against Dean through their clothes.  They've always lived in each other's pockets, but there's a certain amount of modesty even brothers try to preserve, so Sam's erection, the size and heft of it, hasn't been Dean's to survey, until now.  Like he'd guess, it's Gigantor.  
  
"Don't know what you're hoping to do with that thing," Dean quips, pulling his hand free of Sam's hair, running it down Sam's side, across his belly, between them, "but maybe, something like this?" He palms Sam firmly through the thick layers of cloth and Sam's groan turns his insides liquid.  
  
Somehow, Dean gets Sam's fly open and his boxer briefs down, and squirms enough out of his own clothes to press against Sam with his own erection.  Sam is hard, so hard, and leaking, and that turns Dean on so much, to feel how much Sam wants him -- this isn't just some sorry pity fuck or last ditch try.  Dean can read a body, he knows how to play desire, and fucking is one of the things that Dean does best.  
  
"Can you feel that, Sammy?" he whispers, into Sam's ear, biting at Sam's neck and jaw and holding him down to the floor as Sam arches up against him.  
  
"Does it feel good, me hot and hard and sliding through your slick, all up against you like this?" Dean has them both in his grip, and it does, it feels so good.  The pleasure is running up and down his spine, clear from the top of his head into places inside him that are going molten, ready to spill over soon.  
  
"Tell me, Sam!" Dean commands.  
  
"God, yes, it feels good, Dean!  Fuck!" Sam swears.  
  
"I can make you feel so good, Sammy," Dean promises.  "You took me by surprise.  Just wait till I get you in a bed.  That's all we need.  A few pillows.  And then I'll show you how to fuck so good…"  
  
Sam surges up into Dean and Dean flips.  Sam has him pinned, raging over him, sweat dripping from his long bangs as he arches over Dean.  
  
"I want that, Dean.  I want it all!" Sam gasps, and the freedom of  hearing Sammy say it out loud brings Dean off, into their hands, and the sudden, wet heat makes it feel just so much better.  
  
Sam practically roars as he spills all over Dean, thrusting into the hot mess on his stomach where his tee shirt rode up, until with one last keening wail, he lets go, and collapses, rolling to the side of Dean instead of crashing onto him like an avalanche.  
  
Dean catches his breath, with Sam panting beside him.  After a bit he looks over and Sam is looking back, a sheepish little smile on his face.  
  
"That was awesome," Dean says, and his face breaks out in a grin.  
  
"It really was," Sam says, smiling, and his eyes are as clear as day.

 

=====

Dean, to Sam, who is having hallucinations of Lucifer:   I am your flesh-and-blood brother, okay? I’m the only one who can legitimately kick your ass in real time. You got away. We got you out, Sammy. Believe in that! Believe me, okay? You gotta believe me. You gotta make it stone number one and build on it. You understand? (transcript of 7.02 at Supernatural Wiki)  
  
I had three prompts for s7 from day by drabble Midwinter -- a photo of silly hats, a photo of logs burning in a fireplace, and the word "flame."  All these point to Sam's struggles to retain his sanity while reliving the experience of suffering Lucifer's torments in Hell, but strangely enough, the prompts also point toward Sam finding comfort.  So I'm going with that. :)  Also-- There have to be around 3.2 million stories called Stone Number One, hm?? :)


	8. s8: Bright

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's good to have a bunker of your own, and it's good sometimes to really talk things out.

s8: Bright  
  
The bunker was absolutely quiet at night.  It freaked Dean out a little.  He wasn't used to such an air of peacefulness.  The buzz of fluorescent lightning, the whirr of HVAC systems, the purr of a furnace -- even the sounds of most modern buildings were silenced in the timeless Hall of Letters.  Pulling fresh seeming laundry out of cupboards that had been packed decades ago made Dean think there had to be some kind of spellwork involved.  
  
Dean's room, for the first time ever, was no one's but his own.  He remembered with a frown when he'd first moved in with Lisa, how kind she'd been, and how awkward and wrong he'd felt in her pleasant, suburban guest room, tossing and turning between high thread count unbleached cotton sheets, unsoothed by the scent of organic lavender detergent.  It hadn't seemed right until the night he'd spilled a tumbler of Jack into the carpet; from then on he could pretend he was still in some skanky hotel room, that the murmurs of the sleeping house around him were somehow  Sam, the familiar huffs of his breath.  
  
The Men of Letters had excellent taste in Scotch whiskey.   Their sheets were nice but not crazy nice.  The rooms were not too big -- dormitory rooms for men (and women too, judging by the woman who'd been hijacked by Abaddon) who meant business.  Sturdy, well made furniture; simple, traditionally appointed bathrooms; a nicely outfitted kitchen and dining facilities.  
  
All told it all made Dean feel at home, like he could easily live here.  He moved in and made himself cozy, and that's how it felt -- like he had come home.  His grandad, and maybe his great grandad and great great and so on,  had all had a hand in making this place what it was. Hell, rummaging around in one of the bedroom bureaus he'd found a stack of men's handkerchiefs monogrammed with W.   So it was natural that the place would all feel --not familiar, maybe, but welcoming, like he belonged.  
  
He tried sometimes to imagine what it must have once been like, a peaceful hub of activity, Men of Letters keeping tabs on the world, making notes in their careful logs, interpreting and studying the Supernatural -- maybe even passing on jobs to Hunters if and when things got out of hand.  Had old man Campbell known about the Letters? How could he not? Dean burned in frustration sometimes thinking of all of their heritage he and Sam had lost, without even knowing what they were losing.  
  
But not right now -- now was time to take a deep breath -- to pause and appreciate the hand they'd for once been dealt.  A bunker -- all their own!  And not a squalid little fallout shelter buried in some crackpot's backyard -- not a muddy cave or a stinking sewer -- but a place so elegant it seemed like a palace!  Dean could imagine some fussy old Alfred, Jeeves or Jarvis carrying Scotch on trays, ringing the bell to say "dinner was served," or polishing the brass on the telescope or whatnot.  
  
Still, it was just so quiet.  Usually, the quiet didn't do much more than wake Dean up with a start at 2:58 am, so that he would lie there staring at the time, till his eyes burned and the adrenaline faded and he'd sleep a little later the next morning.  
  
But this time, the quiet rang in his ears like the silence of the dead.  It reminded him of the morning he'd woken up in a coffin, eighteen inches of soil deadening off  the sounds of the outside world until he'd burst through, scrabbling for light and life, the dirt of his own grave black beneath his fingernails, in his nostrils and in his eyes.  
  
Dean swung his feet out of bed and turned on the light.  It was bright, cheery, clear.  He went down the hall to the bathroom and splashed his face.  When he looked in the mirror, there he was, no one but himself.  Purgatory had done something to him -- for once maybe not something bad. Dean thought it was called survival-- but there was no guilt, no despair, no moral quandaries -- just fighting for his life and winning for once. He and  Benny made it out -- even Cas too, eventually.  
  
"Dean!" Sam yelled.  
  
In a heartbeat Dean was out the door, down the hall, skidding into Sam's bedroom.  
  
"Dean! Dean!" Sam yelled again.  He was thrashing in the bed, his eyes tightly closed.  
  
"Sam -- wake up!" Dean said loudly.  
  
Sam gasped and sat straight up, eyes wide until he focused on Dean.  
  
Sam had always been one for dramatic nightmares, chest heaving as he sucked in breath.  
  
"You were asleep," Dean said.  
  
"I found you!" Sam panted.  
  
"Room's just down the hall," Dean said drily.  
  
"Uh-- I mean, I dreamed I found you.  Never mind," Sam said blushing, looking away.  
  
Dean realized what Sam was talking about when he recognized Sam's  regretful, guilty look.  
  
"You mean -- you were looking for me? in Purgatory?"   It was hard on Dean to think that Sam hadn't even looked.  
  
Sam bit his lip and turned guiltily away.  
  
"You never even looked, man!" Dean accused.  He knew he should let it drop, but he just couldn't.  
  
Sam gave Dean a baleful stare, but made no reply.  
  
"You just went straight to Texas and shacked up with that girl."  
  
"Of course not!" Sam burst out.  
  
Dean tapped his foot and waited.  
  
The brothers glared at each other.  This time, Dean was going to get an explanation.  
  
"Fine, Dean!  The whole miserable story of how I screwed up, yet again!" Sam shouted.  
  
He was still in bed, but he pushed himself back to sit against the headboard, and gripped the bedspread between his hands.  
  
"You killed Dick Roman and he exploded, and then there was this giant, resounding boom, and you were just gone.  No sign of Cas.  Kevin gone, all the demons gone, and the leviathans, they just shut down without Dick."  
  
"So your first thought wasn't 'wonder where they all went'?" Dean said.  
  
"My first thought, Dean, was that you were dead, again, that it was my fault, again, and that I did not have one solid lead to try and figure out how to get you back."  
  
"You knew how to open the gate to Purgatory," Dean suggested, but he knew that wasn't really true.  
  
"After we'd just barely defeated the Leviathan? after losing Bobby, and, and you?  Really?"  Sam waited, but Dean said nothing.  "And besides, why would you have gone to Purgatory -- wasn't it supposed to be for monsters?  Did Dick go there, or was he just -- wiped out?"  
  
Dean had to admit it looked like Dick had been wiped out.  He hadn't run into him in Purgatory anyway.  Still.  It was the principle of the thing.  "What about Kevin?"  
  
Sam's mouth sealed closed.  
  
"What about Kevin?" Dean insisted.  
  
"They tricked me," Sam said reluctantly.  "The demons.  Crowley called me, made it seem like Kevin -- begging -- tortured -- it was horrible."  
  
Dean frowned, but then he had to admit, it did sound like something the demons would do.  "So you ditched your phones?"  
  
"They killed Kevin -- I heard them -- and then they just kept calling me to brag about it, and I finally just left the phones at the cabin. So I never got Kevin's messages.  I know I messed up.  I really regret that.  I'm sorry."  
  
Dean thought it over.  "So.. it wasn't that you didn't look.  It was that you didn't know how to start looking."  
  
"What's the difference?" Sam said sadly.  "I didn't get you out.  I didn't even try."  
  
Dean felt the knowledge click together in his head.  "It wasn't that you didn't try, it was that you couldn't figure how to beat the odds."  
  
"Same thing," Sam said, accepting all the blame.  
  
"Forget it," Dean said.  
  
"What?" Sam said.  
  
"I kind of liked it in Purgatory.  It kind of cleared my head somehow.  It wasn't so bad."  
  
Sam gaped.  
  
"Better than Hell anyways," Dean said.  "A lot more fun than Heaven that's for sure."  
  
"You and Benny," Sam said, wiggling his fingers.  
  
"A gentleman never tells," Dean said.  
  
"So you can tell then," Sam said.  It was an old pact between them, never to keep such secrets, especially not if asked outright.  
  
"Not as such," Dean said, uncomfortably.  
  
Sam raised his eyebrows.  
  
"Vampires.. don't…" Dean said.  
  
"Hmm," Sam said, eyebrows high.  
  
"I will punch your smug face," Dean said, but then he laughed, and Sam laughed, and before long they were side by side on Sam's narrow bed, laughing and laughing, until they calmed down, and they were smiling calmly at each other.  
  
"You looked for me, you idiot," Dean said.  
  
"I didn't know how," Sam whined.  
  
"But you spent all that time running the problem through your gigantic brain," Dean said.  
  
"Well, yeah," Sam groused, "much good it did me."  
  
"I forgive you," Dean said, magnanimously.  
  
"That's… that's good," Sam said, voice a little husky.  
  
They were staring now, just inches between them.  
  
"I got out," Dean whispered.  
  
"I'm so glad," Sam said.  
  
They breathed one another's breath until their lips met softly.  
  
The Men of Letters bunker was still and quiet in the night, except for the peaceful rustling sound of lovers meeting.  
  
\----  
Notes:  Thanks so much to everyone who has taken the time to read and comment. Your comments make all the difference! Day by drabble midwinter prompt 27, bright.  
Also, 28. photo of wintry tree blooming with pink and white blossoms.  
And, 31. The woods [IN PURGATORY!] are lovely, dark and deep.  But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep.  --  Robert Frost  
Unused was 2. photo of man hunched over with dog in snow. (Riot!)  
And sorry Coldplay, though this is somewhat reminiscent of the situation with Naomi:  
23\. Clearly I remember From the windows they were watching While we froze down below  
When the future's architectured By a carnival of idiots on show  
You'd better lie low If you love me, won't you let me know? "Violet Hill" by Coldplay


End file.
